Roundup toxic to soil fungus at doses well below agricultural dilution

[JohnyCanuck]

22. Check this out: USDA Scientist: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Damages Soil

USDA Scientist: Monsanto's Roundup Herbicide Damages Soil

What Roundup is doing above ground may be a stroll through the meadow compared to its effect below. According to USDA scientist Robert Kremer, who spoke at a conference last week, Roundup may also be damaging soil—a sobering thought, given that it's applied to hundreds of millions of acres of prime farmland in the United States and South America. Here's a Reuters account of Kremer's presentation:

The heavy use of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide appears to be causing harmful changes in soil and potentially hindering yields of the genetically modified crops that farmers are cultivating, a US government scientist said on Friday. Repeated use of the chemical glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup herbicide, impacts the root structure of plants, and 15 years of research indicates that the chemical could be causing fungal root disease, said Bob Kremer, a microbiologist with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.

Now, Kremer has been raising these concerns for a couple of years now—and as Tom Laskaway showed in this 2010 Grist article, the USDA has been downplaying them for just as long. Laskaway asked Kremer's boss at the Agricultural Research Service, Michael Shannon, to comment on Kremer's research. According to Laskaway, Shannon "admitted that Kremer’s results are valid, but said that the danger they represent pales in comparison to the superweed threat."

So let's get this straight: The head of the USDA's crop-research service agrees that Roundup damages soil and thinks the superweed problem is even more troublesome. In the face of these two menaces, you might expect the USDA to intervene to curtail Roundup use. But Shannon meant his statement as a rationale for ignoring Kremer's work. Meanwhile, the USDA keeps approving new Roundup Ready crops—ensuring that the herbicide's domain over US farmland will expand dramatically.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2011/08/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-soil-damage

FYI Dr Robert Kremer has now retired from the USDA after 32 years of service and is now a Professor of Soil Microbiology at the University of Missouri and still campaigning for stricter testing of glyphosate herbicides. He continues to warn that his work experience as a microbiologist at the USDA leads him to believe that the long term harmful effects of glyphosate based herbicides are being underestimated. Those interested can listen to a podcast of a 47 minute interview with Dr. Kremer here (link to podcast at the bottom of the text): http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/05/dr-robert-kremer-gmos-glyphosate-and-soil-biology/

Now take a look at the video below with particular attention at the 8:34 mark where a German plant physiologist shows that fields which have been sprayed with glyphosate over an 11 year period produce crops which are unable to thrive and suffer higher disease rates because they have stunted root systems and are unable to take up water like a normal plant. In contrast, plants in neighboring fields where glyphosate has only been used for 2 years are still growing normally.

Also check out the 34 minute mark where plant pathologist Don Huber, former chairman of US National Plant Disease Recovery Association, claims that comparing US farm soils that have been sprayed with glyphosate to those that have not show that the microbial life in the sprayed soils show a steady decline over time leading to a situation where glyphosate sprayed soils have fewer good bacteria available to counteract the pathogenic bacteria which cause plant disease.

Poisoned Fields - Glyphosate, the underrated risk?